Wednesday, 28 October 2015

How the EU is used to undermine democracy

If ever there was a beef to be had about the EU, it would be on the
subject of democracy and how it fails to respect or support national
democracy instead, looking to supplant it with an EU plutocracy. I
say plutocracy because I see the EU as the creation of a two-tier state,
with a wealthy political and corporate class creating a governance
mechanism for the rest of us to be burdened with.

Many of us have been
screaming for years that the EU is a huge danger to our fundamental freedoms,
yet due to the softly softly approach of the EU project, they've
managed to get where they want without facing significant resistance.
But it's becoming clearer now that there is a definite cabal driving an
agenda that undermines national freedoms and democracies in favour of a new status quo; something more frightening and less democratic than the federalist paradigm we've been fighting against for years.

Wait - so this isn't just about transition of powers from one democratic institution to another, more centralised body? In my opinion, no.

Firstly, the lack of 'hire and fire' accountability of EU legislators, who will be neck deep in the tidal wave of lobbyists sloshing round Brussels, means that for every power migrated away from the UK (or any other member nation for that matter), there is a dilution in the effectiveness of your voting power. When they push laws that you don't like, you simply cannot get rid of these people. A national election becomes a token exercise of faux democratic appeasement rather than creation of a genuine mandate by the people. What's worse is that national governments can use the EU as a mechanism to drive through unpopular laws at that level in order to deliberately circumvent national political institutions.

Secondly? Well then there's the unsettling matter of Portugal. The nation recently voted against the pro austerity conservative government and for the socialist opposition who formed a coalition with radical left anti austerity parties. Yet, the Portuguese President has vowed to block them from taking power. Why?

He says: "Never in 40 years of democracy, have the governments in Portugal relied on the support
of anti-European political forces."

In other words, if you're not prepared to support the EU, you don't get to govern. This should send shivers up and down the spine of anyone who thinks that their vote actually counts toward shaping the destiny of their nation. The EU is already in a situation where it needs to have more direct political control of member states in order to maintain the precarious currency union that it has and it will certainly need more control as the project advances.

Alarming as it is, there is one further thought that unsettles me more about the matter of Portugal. It's a dramatic event which, with proper scrutiny would do much to expose the true nature of the EU to anyone concerned about its future direction and intentions. Yet, it appears to be getting zero air time from the likes of the BBC. For some reason they either don't see it as news worthy, or they're being highly selective about what they want to report.

Now we understand what was meant by Peter Mandelson when he said we were living in a "post democratic era". The referendum is possibly the only chance this generation will have to reverse the intentional damage that is being done to democracy.